"Very many pleasures are almost only pleasures because we hope and intend to recount them." –Giacomo Leopardi

Craft Beer Rising Festival 2015: 22 February

If someone says “bottoms up,” and you don’t know whether to bend at the elbow or the waist, you’ve probably had enough.

Great news for thirsty Londoners. This Sunday, 22 February, you can sample more than 530 beers from 80 breweries at one location.

Okay, so it might be physically impossible (and certainly inadvisable) to try ALL of those beers, but the Craft Beer Rising Festival at the Old Truman Brewery in Shoreditch offers the opportunity to wobble among a wide variety of stalls serving up lip-smacking suds from as far away as Mexico and as close as London itself.

You can also groove to tunes in the Music Room, nosh on street food like incendiary-sounding chorizo bombs, smoked BBQ and schnitzel, and check out the latest industry innovations.

Tickets are available from £17, including a £5 beer token, a choice of glassware, and a token.

Here’s a taste of what’s brewing.

Stu McKinlay of Yeastie Boys Brewery in Wellington, New Zealand taps into your darkest desires with his inky Pot Kettle Black South Pacific Porter. McKinlay’s Earl Grey-flavoured Gunnamatta Tea Leaf IPA, which won Champion Beer at the Great Australasian Beer Spectacular, might just convert me to a tea drinker, too. (Personally, I’d even give him an award for the brewery’s name alone.)

A great way to welcome your honey home…with a Honey Beer from London-based Hiver, which sources real urban and rural honey and uses an organic specialty malt to create an all-British unpasteurised beer.

In addition to the original blonde beer (5%), Hiver has also just launched a new Honey Brown Ale. At 4.5%, it packs in plenty of flavour without the sting of higher ABV brews.

If you need further proof that these brewers are the bees’ knees, how about this? Hiver donates 10% of its profits to pollinator charities.

In the immortal words of Jonathan Edwards, “We gonna lay around the shanty, mama, and put a good ‘buzz’ on.”

Nah. I mean, Beavertown’s Bloody ‘Ell Blood Orange special IPA practically counts as a fruit, right? Personally, I plan to consider it one of my “five a day”–although at 7.2% ABV, I’m not sure I can handle more than one.

Other offerings from this London-based brewery include the gently lubricating Neck Oil Session IPA (4.3%), Heavy Water Imperial Stout with Sea Salt & Cherries (sure to have you sailing three sheets to the wind at 9%), and one that pairs perfectly with burgers and BBQ, the Smog Rocket Smoked Porter (5.4%).

COOL GADGETS

Beer in a box? You betcha. Semi-sparkling wine and cider, too, thanks to Carbotek. This eco-friendly system de-carbonates beverages, stores the fluid in recyclable cardboard boxes, then dispenses it as desired through a draft system which, hey presto, re-carbonates it again.

Carbotek dispensers work with semi-sparkling wine, beer and cider.

One of the main benefits is shelf life. Whereas an average keg of beer might stay fresh for three days, boxes of brew can keep for three weeks. For smaller pubs and restaurants wishing to offer more variety, or which simply don’t sell huge quantities at a time, that’s a big bonus.

Want a draft beer to go? Blitz Drink Systems is demonstrating a growler system, retailing for £1,190, which dispenses up to four beers on tap and accommodates containers ranging from 500 ML to party-sized 3 liter bottles.